The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott Page A
Authors: Patricia Bell-Scott
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suffered from anxiety and mood swings. The lack of time and resources to nurture her fertile creativity made her unhappy. She yearned to write, to try “experimental theatre,” and to pursue photography.
Another issue had surfaced on a regular basis since Murray had turned nineteen. That issue, she typed in bold honesty on the page, involved “either falling in love with a member of my sex, or finding no opportunity to express such an attraction in normal ways—sex life, marriage, dating, identification with the person and her environment.” In fact, a week before the NSW banquet, aRhode Island police officer had found Murray walking along the highway in Providence. She was distraught over the “disappearance”of a femalefriend, possibly PegHolmes, after what may have been a breakup. Murray was not arrested. However, the officer who took her back to New York reported, according to the FBI, that she “was dressed in men’s clothing” and had said “she was a homosexual and was taking treatments atBellevueHospital.”
Since Murray’s hospitalization at the Long Island Home three yearsearlier, she had been consulting with doctors and scouring the scientific literature in search of an “answer to true homosexuality.” That Murray asked one psychiatrist if she had “a mother fixation” demonstrated her familiarity with psychoanalysis. Having rebuffed psychiatric treatment and the theory that her attraction to women was a manifestation of homosexuality, Murray constructed an alternative explanation.She convinced herself that shewas a pseudohermaphrodite with secreted testes (and she would hold this belief until X-rays of her uterus, fallopian tubes, and the surrounding area proved her wrong). Such a condition pointed to biology—specifically, the presence of male gonads and hormones—rather than mental illness as the source of her attraction to women, her tomboyishness, and her lack of interest in feminine pursuits, such as housekeeping.
While this idea gave Murray a way to reject a homosexual identity, it did not protect her from the perception of others, including the doctors who refused to prescribe the hormones she hoped would help her, that she was lesbian. Nor did it spare her the prejudice and discrimination against homosexuals. Just a few years earlier, Murray had proudly askedNancy Cunard to publish a photograph of Pete, her “boy-self.”Now the suspicion of people she admired, such asThurgood Marshall, and possibly the rejection of someone she loved overwhelmed her with shame and despair.
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TWO DAYS AFTER the NSW banquet, Murray, much improved, wrote an upbeat letter thanking Eleanor Roosevelt for her contribution. Murray admitted that she was physically exhausted, but she said nothing of her emotional difficulties. “When people overwork themselves, even for the best of causes, they must pay for it,” she wrote. “And so I was in the Hospital on the night of theAnnual Dinner-Forum for National Sharecroppers Week, and my punishment was that I was unable to hear you speak, or to participate in the activities of our campaign, even by listening over the radio. I am still in the Hospital, but hope to be out by the first of next week.”
Murray concealed that she was in a psychiatric unit by writing on NSW letterhead and using her home address for the return. The only hint of her anguish was her reaction to a comment ER made about acharacter inElizabeth Goudge’s book The Sister of the Angels . That character, ER had said in her column, “accepts people as they are and doesnot try to turn them into the kind of people they should be.” Murray made no mention of her own longing for acceptance, but she did tell ER that hercolumn had “helped people along in their personal problems.”
Murray also apologized for lashing out atER’s remarks about theKeith Theatre protest. The version of “My Day” Murray read in the New York World-Telegram hadomitted the most important paragraph—the
Another issue had surfaced on a regular basis since Murray had turned nineteen. That issue, she typed in bold honesty on the page, involved “either falling in love with a member of my sex, or finding no opportunity to express such an attraction in normal ways—sex life, marriage, dating, identification with the person and her environment.” In fact, a week before the NSW banquet, aRhode Island police officer had found Murray walking along the highway in Providence. She was distraught over the “disappearance”of a femalefriend, possibly PegHolmes, after what may have been a breakup. Murray was not arrested. However, the officer who took her back to New York reported, according to the FBI, that she “was dressed in men’s clothing” and had said “she was a homosexual and was taking treatments atBellevueHospital.”
Since Murray’s hospitalization at the Long Island Home three yearsearlier, she had been consulting with doctors and scouring the scientific literature in search of an “answer to true homosexuality.” That Murray asked one psychiatrist if she had “a mother fixation” demonstrated her familiarity with psychoanalysis. Having rebuffed psychiatric treatment and the theory that her attraction to women was a manifestation of homosexuality, Murray constructed an alternative explanation.She convinced herself that shewas a pseudohermaphrodite with secreted testes (and she would hold this belief until X-rays of her uterus, fallopian tubes, and the surrounding area proved her wrong). Such a condition pointed to biology—specifically, the presence of male gonads and hormones—rather than mental illness as the source of her attraction to women, her tomboyishness, and her lack of interest in feminine pursuits, such as housekeeping.
While this idea gave Murray a way to reject a homosexual identity, it did not protect her from the perception of others, including the doctors who refused to prescribe the hormones she hoped would help her, that she was lesbian. Nor did it spare her the prejudice and discrimination against homosexuals. Just a few years earlier, Murray had proudly askedNancy Cunard to publish a photograph of Pete, her “boy-self.”Now the suspicion of people she admired, such asThurgood Marshall, and possibly the rejection of someone she loved overwhelmed her with shame and despair.
· · ·
TWO DAYS AFTER the NSW banquet, Murray, much improved, wrote an upbeat letter thanking Eleanor Roosevelt for her contribution. Murray admitted that she was physically exhausted, but she said nothing of her emotional difficulties. “When people overwork themselves, even for the best of causes, they must pay for it,” she wrote. “And so I was in the Hospital on the night of theAnnual Dinner-Forum for National Sharecroppers Week, and my punishment was that I was unable to hear you speak, or to participate in the activities of our campaign, even by listening over the radio. I am still in the Hospital, but hope to be out by the first of next week.”
Murray concealed that she was in a psychiatric unit by writing on NSW letterhead and using her home address for the return. The only hint of her anguish was her reaction to a comment ER made about acharacter inElizabeth Goudge’s book The Sister of the Angels . That character, ER had said in her column, “accepts people as they are and doesnot try to turn them into the kind of people they should be.” Murray made no mention of her own longing for acceptance, but she did tell ER that hercolumn had “helped people along in their personal problems.”
Murray also apologized for lashing out atER’s remarks about theKeith Theatre protest. The version of “My Day” Murray read in the New York World-Telegram hadomitted the most important paragraph—the
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